How Much Of The Collapse Of Recorded Music Sales Revenue Was Due To The End Of Illegal Price Fixing?

from the just-saying.. dept

Harold Feld has made a very important point that has been totally ignored in the debate over the state of the recorded music business. In Cary Sherman's diatribe about how the evil tech industry is destroying the music industry, not only does he pretend that recorded music is representative of the wider music industry's situation (it's not... at all), but he seems to have carefully chosen the date of 1999 as his starting point for the supposed "collapse." Why? Because in 1999 the major record labels (i.e., exactly who the RIAA represents) were charged with illegal price fixing... a practice they then agreed to cease. And, of course, when you stop price fixing, generally speaking your revenue goes down:

This is a pretty important point. The "high point" for recorded music sales was completely artificial, not just because of a "legal" monopoly right, but because of illegal antitrust activities in the form of price fixing.